Our today’s post is going to be brief, but priceless! For a couple of years by now we have been trying to avoid making a decision on where, how, and with whom we should celebrate New Year, which salads to cook and outfits to wear. The New Year 2015 became the first celebration of this kind: we spent it in Africa, the capital of Uganda – Kampala.

New Year Party.

Till the very last moment we did not have the plan of celebration: we were even thinking that just two of us would celebrate together, with fruits and sparkling wine. We were moving every day, travelling around Africa, and did not know what was coming tomorrow. On December, 31, we took a walk around Kampala museums and our couchsurfer, Catherine, offered to celebrate New Year with her friends. Catherine was a member of investment club, as she explained this is a group of educated young people searching for the good enterprises to invest into. Indeed, we noticed that the young people here were not so simple. This was one of the few places in Africa, where they did not point at us with fingers and were not shouting out the word “mzungu” (white person). They did not even stare at us, although we were the only white spots at the celebration. Those whom we met were polite and nice.
The participation cost 10000 shillings for us (less than 3 euros). This included several free cocktails, grilled food, and the toast-master service.

Birthday celebration.

To be precise, this was one of the members of the club who was treating others with the cocktails: he was having a birthday on the same day. For his birthday, he received a cake in the shape of a woman’s body, with the emblem of Manchester United – his favourite team.

During the congratulations, several bottles of beer were poured on him – as our new friends explained, this had become a tradition several years before and, expecting it, the birthday boy has the clothes to change in his car.

The wet birthday boy thanking for the birthday wishes:

During the celebration, the videos from the club events were being shown from the big screen. For instance, both girls and boys play football together, and this is video recorded. Africans are definitely in love with football.

New Year dishes.

Meanwhile, the grilled meat and vegetables were ready.

We turned from the cocktails to beer.

Unexpectedly, at 00.00 they did not show the president giving a speech. Our new friends explained that they do not have such a tradition: the president does not make a New Year speech and they make the New Year countdown themselves (also there is no clock strike). Then we celebrated New Year in Estonia time, chilled out, and went to sleep. It was a lot of fun, and it was then that we decided – no more home celebrations! Next year we remained true to this decision and celebrated New Year in a small town of Thailand.

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